There is something to be said about high-level information warfare. We are not good at it. And boy, the Israelis make us look nearly competent. Given the neighborhood, I am shocked at how bad they are.
Why are we so bad at it? I suspect it is the Paradox of tolerance:
In The Open Society and its Enemies, a must-read for every liberal, Popper states that “unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance… We must therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate intolerance”.
In practical terms, Popper tells us that tolerating absolutely everything would also mean tolerating those who limit the freedoms of others: homophobic, xenophobic or racist speeches should be admitted without limits. We would all agree that this would indeed be inadmissible.
However, this paradox implies setting limits on freedom of expression, an apparently illiberal proposal. Who decides the limit of such tolerance of intolerance? Should all “intolerant” ideas be censored?
For Popper, the limit lies in violence; as long as any intolerant ideas or opinions could be countered through discursive or educational tools — what he called rational arguments — they should not be censored. Coercion and violence are then the limit, since in freedom, dialogue, debate and respect are always in the foreground. Karl Popper summed up his theory in a single sentence: “We must therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate intolerance”.
Open societies cherish information exchanges and the free flow of information. This is why we sometimes hear people in the United States say, “I don’t agree with you, but I will defend your right to say it.” This includes jihadis, Nazis, and other doubtful characters.
Never mind, they will not extend this courtesy to those defending their rights to advocate murder. Open societies are allergic to challenging toxic ideologies. There are a few exceptions; neither Japan nor Germany embraces this, and everything goes way of thinking.
They have a history of where this leads to. Popper addressed that history in his works.
This also means that open societies can hold multiple views simultaneously. They also implicitly trust that facts will save the day. This brings me to Israel and the United States, both facing enemies in the realm of high-domain hybrid warfare.
Let me use an example from the last thirty-six hours in Israel. It’s been textbook, not just from Oct 7, but earlier on what Israel does, or rather does not do. We do the same, just less poorly.
Israel killed in a targeted strike the three sons of Ismail Haniyeh. Unfortunately, his grandchildren were in the vehicle, too. The three men were commanders in the military arm of Hamas. Under the laws of warfare, they are very valid targets. On brand, they had children on board.
So here is one tweet where these three men are transformed into victims. It’s just one example, the message discipline on this took off like wild fire, transforming three fighters into victims. It’s a great example of DARVO, so the narrative is set.
Israel took over twenty-four hours to have their Public Information Officer address this, well after the storyline was set and most people had moved on. Israel believes that telling facts well after the event will be enough.
It’s not.
It would be best if you got in front of this. It’s called crisis communications. We don’t have much room to speak because we also do the same regularly. Partly, as open societies, we do not get it.
We did a better job of it only in warfare, like the Second World War. Yes, the propaganda of that era is something to behold. But it’s not something we even discuss in lower-level history classes because it makes us feel dirty. If you have time, go to YouTube and watch period-era cartoons. I promise they are an eye-opener, especially since most of those cartoons are no longer seen outside specialist circles. Yes, Mickey and Donald Duck went to war.
You must have a comms shop to communicate during wartime. There are people in the civilian world that specialize in this. In every significant industrial disaster, they emerge from the woodwork. Why? Companies understand their future might be at stake.
See Deep Water Horizon spill for a textbook example of a civilian company using crisis communications effectively.
We deal with this in every war, with a scheduled daily presser. During Vietnam, the press called it the five o'clock follies. So does Israel; this is why Admiral Daniel Hagari came a day later to tell us their version of events.
Here is where closed societies come in. Hamas does high-level hybrid warfare exceptionally well. I mean, it’s astounding how good they are at it. Whether with consistent messaging, using photos from other conflicts to pass as their own, or coming up with casualty numbers immediately after an event.
The Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital strike is a perfect example. It was an Islamic Jihad missile that failed to transition. Nor were casualties even in the low fifties. But media rooms around the world got the 500 people who were killed by the Gaza Department of Public Health and ran with it because Israel did not even start to fight the disinformation for days.
I wrote at the time that the media was also lazy, but that’s what they had. Within two hours, they should have taken the time for their OSINT to go through the videos; we knew it was, at best, a creative account of the story.
In the business, it’s called reportable information. Ten minutes into the incident, it was not even close to being reportable. But they ran with it because of war, eyes on the screen, and arguably some bias, and they were not going to get any comment from Israel for hours, best case. This is, quite frankly, malpractice.
A side comment. Whenever we have a mass shooting, major natural disaster, or other major media event, early reports tend to be wrong. This is why mass shootings often contain multiple shooters, which usually become one. So bear that in mind when consuming news.
This brings me to Ukraine. Having been under the Russian boot, they know how DARVO works. They understand you need to jump in front of Russian creative accounts or outright lies.
The blowing up of the Nova Kharkhova dam is a good example. They got in front and pushed back at Russians, blaming Ukraine two minutes into it. Yes, I was awake for that one. Arguably, it was long enough to confirm something happened and to write the first Telegram message.
They have also created many channels, chiefly on Telegram, that report on news 24/7 and are message-consistent. United 24 is also the English official channel, with multiple social media presence.
Message consistency is not a bug of high-level hybrid warfare, or if you will, crisis communications. It has to be a central feature. At a governmental level, it must be the guiding principle. Civilians doing their own thing, calling on the nonsense, do this the best way they can. However, especially those new to the digital front lines, can benefit from some consistency.
Yes, I know Israel says they are going after Hamas. This is good. But like us early after 9–11 that message discipline was not there. The leaks from the cabinet, while I love them as a member of the media, won’t complain much and are a problem when fighting information warfare.
Any of us who was paying attention after 9–11 knows the messaging within the George W Bush administration was not consistent either. However, this iconic photo is the most compelling moment early in communications.
Israel (and us) need to get over our allergy to crisis communications. It’s never too late to do that. But at this point, Israel will be chasing more than a few stories that it has never fought against in real-time. This is not a problem of Oct 7. It’s much older than this disaster. And Israelis have the attitude that it don’t matter because they don’t believe us anyway, we know the truth.
I don’t expect civilians to change this attitude. It has some truth to it. But it’s also a self-perpetuating problem. And as I said, we also have little room to speak. Because we arguably are just less bad about it. As we head to something significant, we must consider how to fight in that realm. Because we already are under attack.
This is an excellent article. We could be using DARVOS against the perpetrators who are waging war against women in this society, but since they remain victims and rarely grow out of this relationship we do not heal and move forward. The Patriarchal society uses this to their advantage and it needs to stop. E Jean Carroll had an opportunity to use this month for #SAAM awareness after her win and she let it go. Huge disservice to the Country as a whole, since men are rarely held to account for their actions. This is just one example, but both she and Mary L Trump have failed to forge the appropriate coalitions to beat these people. Where are the female strategists???? Why are they soo fragmented? Inconceivable that we are facing a failed Nation because folks will not learn about effective messaging or who the enemy is.